My kids tell me I’m kind of a geek, and sometimes it feels good to just embrace it and really geek out. As many of you know, I received a GoPro from my wife Betsy for Christmas, and I’m now doing some video as well as photography.
Well, I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to have a remote controlled wing mount that rotates the camera. So I made one, although it took me many evenings and a few false starts (for example, the wind overpowered the first motor so I had to get a bigger, geared motor).
For anyone that cares, I used a geared stepper motor, a programmable microcontroller board, a stepper driver circuit board, a remote control from a still camera that I wired into it, a 12V battery, a switch and a fuse. I programmed a series of “actions” that I can request from the cockpit.
The thing is, it works. I had a vision of creating the illusion of the plane turning around the camera, and my vision wasn’t far off.
I had a business meeting in Bellingham and spent the night so I thought the next morning over the San Juan islands would be a good place to really try it out.
Enjoy
West Coast Flying Adventures 